Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/201

 THE FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON II By LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE, Ph. D. CHAPTER III OREGON AND THE DIPLOMACY OF 1821-1827 So far as there is any merit in a policy of consistency the treatment of the Oregon Question as a diplomatic issue enjoyed its benefits from the rise of the question after the War of 1812 and until 1827, when the renewal of the agreement of 1818 put an end to active discussion. It was under the guiding hand of John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State that the negotiations leading to the Convention of 1818 were con- ducted; so, too, when the affair came to the front in 1823-4, both with Russia and with Great Britain, the same secretary dictated the policy, while in 1826-7 Adams as President main- tained the stand which he had taken earlier in the controversy. During the period of about sixteen years, then, it was the will of the second Adams that dominated the whole question. The motives which animated Adams fall into two groups: if a division, as between the United States and Great Britain, equitable so far as American claims were concerned, could be obtained, let the matter be settled definitely upon such lines; if, to secure a definite arrangement, more must be ceded than the United States could clearly claim, the question might be allowed to rest in statu quo until it should be really vital to one or the other party. In following out a single line of activity, such as the one here under consideration, there is always a temptation to exalt each episode into a position out of perspective. To avoid such a charge it is well again to call attention to the fact that no magnifying of detail can serve to make of the Oregon Question in the period now under consideration a vital national issue. It is clear that the people at large were not interested in the Northwest Coast. Numerous other matters both domestic and involving international relations overshadowed the topic of the sovereignty over a transmontane district, known to a